in Congress was in favour of speedy and, as it was hoped, decisive action, and this was understood as involving, whatever else was done, an attempt soon to capture Richmond.  In McClellan’s view, as in Scott’s, the first object was the full preparation of the Army, but he would have wished to wait till he had a fully trained force of 273,000 men on the Potomac, and a powerful fleet with many transports to support his movements; and, when he had all this, to move southwards in irresistible force, both advancing direct into Virginia and landing at points on the coast, subduing each of the Atlantic States of the Confederacy in turn.  If the indefinite delay and the overwhelming force which his fancy pictured could have been granted him, it is plain, the military critics have said, that “he could not have destroyed the Southern armies—­they would have withdrawn inland, and the heart of the Confederacy would have remained untouched.”  But neither the time nor the force for which he wished could be allowed him.  So he had to put aside his plan, but in some ways perhaps it still influenced him.

It would have been impossible to disregard the wishes of those, who in the last resort were masters, for a vigorous attempt on Richmond, and the continually unsuccessful attempts that were made did serve a military purpose, for they kept up a constant drain upon the resources of the South.  In any well-thought-out policy the objects both of Scott’s plan and of the popular plan would have been borne in mind.  That no such policy was consistently followed from the first was partly a result of the long-continued difficulty in finding any younger man who could adequately take the place of Scott; it was not for a want of clear ideas, right or wrong, on Lincoln’s part.

Only two days after the battle of Bull Run, he put on paper his own view as to the future employment of the three armies.  He thought that one should “threaten” Richmond; that one should move from Cincinnati, in Ohio, by a pass called Cumberland Gap in Kentucky, upon Knoxville in Eastern Tennessee; and that the third, using Cairo on the Mississippi as its base, should advance upon Memphis, some 120 miles further south on that river.  Apparently he did not at first wish to commit the army of the Potomac very deeply in its advance on Richmond, and he certainly wished throughout that it should cover Washington against any possible attack.  Memphis was one of the three points at which the Southern railway system touched the great river and communicated with the States beyond—­Vicksburg and New Orleans, much further south, were the others.  Knoxville again is a point, by occupying which, the Northern forces would have cut the direct railway communication between Virginia and the West, but for this move into Eastern Tennessee Lincoln had other reasons nearer his heart.  The people of that region were strongly for the Union; they were invaded by the Confederates and held down by severe coercion,